The overture to the Fall of the Wall

In 1989, after 28 years of divinding Germany, all of a sudden the Berlin Wall came down. But it's a little known fact that before reunification, East and West held detailed preliminary talks about open borders.

Deutsche Welle, 8 Nov 2014

October 29, 1989. It's Sunday. Walter Momper, governing mayor of West Berlin, is in the eastern part of the city. Not entirely incognito, but not officially, either: Manfred Stolpe, a leading figure of the East Germany's Evangelical Church, has invited him for lunch, surprise guests included.

Stolpe, a Social Democrat who became state premier in Brandenburg after reunification, is just acting as go-between. He has two top-level GDR representatives in tow: Günter Schabowski, East Berlin SED (Socialist Unity Party) leader and Erhard Krack, mayor of the East German (GDR) capital.

Serving as venue for this conspiratorial East-West-exchange is the Rose Parlor of the Palasthotel. Among other things, the two East Germans want to discuss the GDR's new travel law about which, four days earlier, the SED party newspaper Neues Deutschland had written for all to read: Further details to follow. The law was scheduled to come into force before Christmas. This was a sensation - a feeling shared by Momper.

The day after the fall of the Berlin Wall:
Willy Brandt (left) joined Walter Momper

Basic work in East Berlin

Momper is downright electrified, according to contemporary historian Hans-Hermann Hertle. As early as the following day he set up a task force under the leadership of the senator for economic affairs.

Schabowski's account surpasses his expectations. Within just a few weeks, hundreds of thousands of East Germans will be allowed to visit West Berlin. The GDR intends to issue passports in order to contain a mass escape movement. Momper knows that his city is not prepared for this kind of rush.

Additional border checkpoints will have to be set up. To Momper's surprise, Schabowski shares this view. Accommodation for East Germans is an open question as well: No-one knows how many of them will just visit and how many will stay. And there are further issues: Will they arrive in their Trabi and Wartburg cars? And they'll definitely be needing maps of West Berlin.

Time is of the essence. Schabowski gives Momper a date: From December 1 at the earliest, the people of West Berlin will have to expect considerable numbers of visitors from the East. Trying to respond adequately, the task force decides in its first meeting on November 1 to schedule follow-up sessions for November 8 and November 15 respectively - unaware that just a short time later events will spiral out of East Germany's control.

Disgruntled Allies

Historian Hans-Hermann Hertle

November 3: The Rose Parlor meeting does not remain secret for long. Western Allies are miffed: They take a dim view of unauthorized talks with East Berlin behind their backs. American envoy Harry Gilmore urges Momper to report to the three Western Allies.

For Egon Bahr, former SPD party leader and Chancellor Willy Brandt's most important foreign policy adviser, it's a mystery to this day that Momper could establish contact with East Berlin at all, without the Americans, the British and the French knowing about it and giving their blessings.

He told DW that he harbors great doubts with respect to the nature and development of the Momper-Schabowski talks. The lack of consultation with the Allies, in particular, to him is intangible.

Even Horst Teltschik, Helmut Kohl's most important adviser in the chancellor's office, claims ignorance as to the Momper-Schabowski talks. "I don't remember any concrete decisions or considerations regarding the opening of the border prior to the fall of the Beriln Wall," he told DW. Conclusion: West Berlin was out on its own at the time.

With his press conference, Günter
Schabowski made history

A controversial letter

On November 6 Walter Momper writes a letter to Chancellor Helmut Kohl. West Berlin, being financially dependent on Bonn, will be unable to cope with the challenge without help from the German Federal Government.

Among other things, Momper proposes that the government send its "welcoming money" to the GDR's state bank, which could then proceed to hand it over to those intending to visit West Germany. Kohl would never have accepted this, says historian Hans-Hermann Hertle, because such a step would have provided legitimization to the GDR leadership.

It is evident that Momper wants to set up a meeting with Kohl. But his letter remains unanswered, Momper tells Hertle many years later. The three-page document was intercepted by the GDR's Stasi secret police. Although the GDR was imploding as a state, its spy network was still functioning perfectly.

Party leader out of his depth

Come November, Berlin is getting ready for the rush and appears to be on the safe side even without support from Bonn. After all, the accords agreed on October 29 had included Schabowski's assurance to send out an early warning two weeks prior to the announced opening of the border.

The central idea of the new GDR travel regulations is handing out passports, issued on request. Dealing with these requests would take a processing period of about six weeks. It was a plan with built-in checks, spread out over weeks. However, events took an unexpected turn. The early warning call never came.

Bureaucracy, for all intents and purposes an area of competence of the SED dictatorship, turns out to be a maze in which the protagonists lose their bearings. Marathon sessions and lack of sleep having taken their toll, and Schabowski fails to stay on top of things in a crucial press conference on November 9.

November 10, 1989: Helmut Kohl (center) and Walter Momper (left) met on
the balcony of Schöneberg's city hall

There is a blocking period for the travel law, but Schabowski is unaware of this. The original plan was to broadcast the new travel regulations on the radio at 4 a.m. the following morning so that border guards would be informed and prepared. Organized exits would have been possible. But briefly before 7 p.m. Schabowski utters the key phrase: "…according to my knowledge this is right now, immediately."

Years later Schabowski revealed all the other thoughts that crossed his mind during that historic press conference. Responding to a journalist's question whether the new travel regulation applied to West Berlin as well, "it suddenly hit me that we had not discussed this with the Soviets." It is amazing to see how independently the Germans arranged their destiny as early as autumn of 1989.

Related Article:

"The Timing of the Great Shift" – Mar 21, 2009 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“… The Great Shift began in 1987 with the Harmonic Convergence. The first part of that shift ended in 1999. It's important that you understand that this first portion of the shift included the galactic alignment. For the true galactic alignment energy began in the first phase of the shift. As my partner indicated, this astronomical alignment is not coming in 2012. It's already here. This is not esoteric information, but something that your astronomers will verify with their telescopes and computers. The ancients did their best, and a good estimate it was. But the 2012 date for the galactic alignment is incorrect.

There are those of you sitting in the chairs who know what I mean. These past 20 years have been remarkable for you, have they not? Look at what has taken place and the awakening and changes that have occurred... all without any prophesy that foretold of them. Those who walk this stage today were not interested in spiritual things 20 years ago. Oh, they may have been seekers, but they had no core, they had no center, they had no purpose. This includes the one who channels in front of you [Lee Carroll], and the ones that have channelled before me on this stage [Geoff Hoppe-Tobias]. Twenty years ago, they were all separate and unknown to each other, without any spiritual purpose. They had no idea what Kryon was or Tobias was. None at all. Their lives were those of men with careers and of an age where starting another passion wasn't something they would do. But they did, and it coincided with the Great Shift.

Remember, there is no such thing as predestined prophecy. God cannot tell you what's going to happen, for on this planet, humans are in charge. "If that's the case, Kryon, how can you tell us about a plan?" It is because these things I speak of are the potentials in front of us, generated by the consciousness of humanity. Therefore, what I give you is something we read into the consciousness of potentials. They are not predictions, but potential energies of what you are about to accomplish as you act upon the energy of the consciousness you have now. Much has happened in these 20 years, and it's part of the shift. Here was the plan from 1987 to 1999 - we told you the following things would take place:

Remember, as I speak to you now, this is history. But when I gave it to you in 1989, it was your future. The first thing that was at hand was moving the magnetic grid. That's why I came here. The grid group came in 1989 and left in 2002, and the grid was moved for the reasons I've been giving you and itemizing for 20 years. It was to build a matrix for a change in your DNA. This is, indeed, what happened, for the grid's magnetic field moved greatly in that time, and it has intersected with the magnetic field of your DNA elements. This overlap has transmitted information and energy and a new quantumization to your DNA, which has always been quantumly prepared for this.

The second item in this first phase was the voiding of the energy of Armageddon. Now, for those of you who think nothing happened, a great deal happened: This planet moved into another energy at that time. One of the largest political systems on the planet fell over and didn't come back, known as the Soviet Union. Again, we say to you there is no Nostradamus quatrain that predicted this, and that should tell you something. It changed the future greatly, yet no prophet called it. Something was happening that was out of synch with everything you had been told. This one event changed the future of a potential war that would never happen. The Armageddon scenario simply didn't take place. Look back at your prophesy, but clearly it said it would. …”